What if technology started with abundance instead of scarcity?
What if apps were built not to fix what’s wrong with us, but to amplify what’s already beautiful about our communities? Well, if you’ve been wondering the answer to these questions, there is a new generation of Black founders who have answered this call in the form of creating platforms that center Black joy from the ground up.
These apps are imagining entirely new realities where our cultural wealth, our connections, and our dreams are the foundation everything else is built on. Instead of simply just asking “how do we solve Black people’s problems,” these founders are asking “how do we celebrate Black people’s brilliance?” The difference shows up in everything from user interface design that feels like home to features that assume our success rather than our struggle.
So if you’re looking for proof that technology can also be culture, creativity, and joy made digital, these apps are a good place to start (especially if you’ve got the space on your phone for one more download).
Stackwell
When Trevor Rozier-Byrd founded Stackwell in 2020, he was imagining what financial empowerment could look like if Black communities had the same access to resources and investing tools as everyone else. After raising $3.5 million in seed funding and launching in August 2022, the platform has already helped open thousands of accounts and invested close to $1 million back into our communities.
But Stackwell’s real innovation isn’t its $1 monthly fee or $10 minimum investment. It’s in the way it reframes wealth. The app celebrates Black wealth-building as something beautiful and inevitable, not something we need to be taught how to do. The platform assumes our financial dreams are valid and valuable, then builds the tools to support them flourishing.
Fanbase
When Isaac Hayes III built Fanbase, he wasn’t just chasing the next “new social platform.” He wanted a place where Black creators could actually own their work instead of watching someone else profit off it. Fanbase lets you do both — share your content and monetize.
Hayes made sure users can buy into the platform itself, so Black creators don’t just build culture here, they build equity too. That’s the true definition of joy in ownership.
Health in Her HUE
Ashlee Wisdom created Health in Her HUE to celebrate the brilliance of Black women who know their own bodies and deserve providers who see that brilliance too. Yes, the digital platform connects Black women and women of color to culturally competent healthcare providers, but since they launched, they do so much more.
It’s a space that assumes Black women’s health experiences are valid, their intuition is valuable, and their healing matters. Instead of starting from what’s broken about healthcare, the platform starts from what’s powerful about community and builds from there.
Spill
Former Twitter employees Alphonzo Terrell and Devaris Brown launched Spill as a way for “visual conversation to happen at the speed of culture.” The Black-owned social platform, which has attracted investment from Kerry Washington, creates digital space where you can share ideas and art, go live with friends, play daily games like Spades, and find your people in communities from around the world.
In short, it’s social media that assumes Black cultural conversation is valuable and builds features that let that conversation flow at its natural speed.
EatOkra
When Janique and Anthony Edwards founded EatOkra in 2016, they knew that Black culinary culture was something beautiful worth showcasing. The husband-and-wife team created a platform that connects over 600,000 foodies to 20,000 Black-owned restaurants, caterers, and food trucks across the United States.
At its core however, EatOkra celebrates Black food culture as art, as community, as joy. The app assumes that Black culinary creativity deserves to be discovered and celebrated, then builds the technology to make that celebration easier and more joyful.
Blapp
Comedian-turned-app developer Jon Laster created Blapp following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, to transform his emotional turmoil into something that could help his community thrive. The app makes it easy to find and support Black-owned businesses across the US, from restaurants to bookstores to therapists.
But Blapp’s real innovation is how it celebrates Black entrepreneurship as something beautiful worth discovering. The platform doesn’t just solve the problem of finding Black-owned businesses, but instead creates joy in the act of supporting community, making it feel good to spend money in ways that build Black wealth. As Laster says, it works by “simplifying people’s desire to help.”